'Two Trains' studies race relations

It was funny, entertaining and it carried a powerful message. These were among the descriptions students offered after viewing Two Trains Running by August Wilson. The play, which runs just under three hours with a short intermission, explores the day-to-day attitudes, concerns and beliefs of seven African Americans in 1969. And following the play Wednesday night, 50 students gathered to discuss race relations at the University in the 1990s. The play takes place in Pittsburgh, where the characters gather regularly at Memphis Lee's diner to talk, drink coffee and put their money on their favorite lottery number. Memphis, played by Johnnie Hobbs -- a University of the Arts professor -- attempts to negotiate the sale of his diner while facing a white governmental bureaucracy. Meanwhile, an ex-convict named Sterling continues his search for a job while wooing Memphis' shy, hard-working waitress, Risa. But undoubtedly, the audience related to and felt for Hambone the most. Played by Vincent Yates, Hambone -- who is assumed to be homeless and without a family -- recalls a white man promising him a ham many years earlier. He constantly chants, "I want my ham" -- the only words he can speak intelligently, as a simple cry of years of injustice. After the show, students said they needed time to digest the play's message. "It was a lot of words for the audience to sit through, a lot of long monologues," said College sophomore and co-Manager of the African American Arts Alliance Asia Slowe. "But I thought the director did an excellent job in bringing life to each character and you get really attached to almost everybody." During the one-hour post-play discussion, seven students, one professor and a moderator debated such topics as assigned housing, mandatory racism classes and inter-racial communication. Newly-elected Black Student League President and College junior Robin Kent expressed her concerns about the lack of student interest at the University. "Students are apathetic," she said. "Students get angry when a crisis arises, but a couple of weeks later it's back to normal." And United Minorities Council Member Alicia Lewis said ideas such as assigned housing will not work if they are mandatory. "You can't force someone to learn about another culture if they don't want to," the Wharton senior said. Thea Diamond, director of education at the Annenberg Center and co-coordinator of the evening, said she thinks students learned a lot from the experience. "The area where I think we make the best strides towards understanding others is in the arts," she said. "That's the best way to open people's minds -- by entertaining them and by making them laugh and cry and?realize that we're all the same."